The lyrics, like the music video, are very strongly influenced by Japanese history and culture, making them really hard to carry over into English. So I have added annotations (links) to my translation of the lyrics. Click through to get more information.

Without further ado, here’s my translation of “Chururi Chururira!”(more…)

AKB48′s Mayu Watanabe and producer Yasushi Akimoto have taken on the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which has become a viral phenomenon on social media recently. The challengers are tasked to dump a bucket of ice water on themselves and upload a proof video on social media within 24hours once they have received the challenge. If they choose to forfeit, they’d have to donate US$100 to the ALS Association. Donations aside, the aim is really to spread awareness about the ALS disease.

Gotensha’s CEO had challenged Akimoto Yasushi to this and he readily took up the challenge on the last day of AKB48’s Tokyo Dome concert. Rino Sashihara and Minami Takahashi dumped the bucket of ice on Akimoto’s head, while members watched from behind and shrieked in delight. Watanabe Mayu also stepped up to represent AKB48, as she dumped ice water on her own head, spoiling the precious bangs that she painstakingly manages.

Japanese laxative medicine Colac First (コーラックファースト) has a very…interesting commercial on the airwaves now. My jaw dropped the first time I saw it on TV.

Here’s the commercial:

So what did you just watch?

First we have our protagonist, “hasn’t come out for 3 days deer” (３日目のデナーシカ/mikkame no denaashika). What hasn’t come out for 3 days? POOP.

Our constipated hero is standing around, feeling sorry for herself and her colon, when another, very fashionable deer walks by, humming and dropping a healthy row of pellets. Constipated-deer watches her peer deer crapping in public, and what’s her reaction? Jealousy! “Lucky (いいな/ii na),” she says.

But even if she wants to poop, she can’t.

Next, there comes an old man goat mailman. He, too, is pooping! Instead of the solid row of turds the first deer left behind, this goat craps in kind of a morse code pattern. Constipated deer is once again jealous. “Lucky!”

Can you imagine a semi-civilized animal world where the animals wear clothes and have jobs but still poop everywhere? Hurry up and invent sanitation, guys!

Anyways, thanks to Colac First, hasn’t-come-out-for-3-days-deer can finally poo! She uses her newfound ability to finish the character だ. Hip hip hooray! Poop!

Anyways, this doria recipe is what happens when I have to cook dinner at 11:00 at night and don’t feel like doing it.

1. First of all, we need some rice, so fire up your rice cooker or get some instant rice or whatever. Dribble some olive oil on a paper towel and coat the inside of a oven-safe pan thingy, and put the rice in it.

2. Usually, if I made doria, I would make a tomato sauce similar to the one I introduced before, but today I don’t feel like doing anything, so these are my ingredients:

We have eggplant and two kinds of mushrooms, which is what I could get at the supermarket at 10:00 at night. There’s onion, which was in the fridge, and some chopped green onions, which were also in fridge and had expired the day before (one day won’t kill you). There’s some basil, which is my way of trying to make it look like I’m making an effort. There’s also prosciutto (生ハム/nama ham), which I chose because it’s meat that you don’t have to cook.

I was determined not to use the frying pan this day.

3. Chop up/rip up all that stuff and throw it on top of the rice, thusly:

4. I didn’t feel like cooking a sauce today, so instead I invited my new friend over:

Pour it on. Maybe use the back of a spoon to try to get some even coverage, but don’t kill yourself over it, it’s not that big of a deal.

5. Cover the whole damn thing in cheese.

6. Now the cooking part is up in the air, so I’ll leave that to you. Today, I cooked it for 30 minutes under the “grill” function of my oven. You could try baking it. You could even microwave it if you really don’t give a crap.

7. While it’s cooking, maybe make a fresh salad to go with it.

Did I say “fresh”? I meant “one tomato and some vegetables that come in envelopes.” Throw it in a bowl and splash some olive oil and vinegar on top and there, it’s salad.

8. All done!

The onions were still kind of raw but at this point it was 12:30 and any craps I gave were officially gone. Bon appetit!

I finally went to Sushiro (スシロー) for the first time. Sushiro is a popular conveyor-belt sushi （回転寿司/kaiten zushi) chain. I’ve only started eating sushi fairly recently, so the only conveyor-belt sushi chain I had had experience with was Daiki Suisan (大紀水産), where I mainly eat 300-yen salmon and 500-yen crab. The reason I wanted to check out Sushiro was because I’ve been hearing a lot about their french fries which, you know, is kind of weird for a sushi place. But I found so much more at Sushiro.

For one thing, Sushiro is cheap! Most of the sushi there cost 100 or 180 yen. At Daiki Suisan, about the only thing that’s that cheap is the egg sushi! But at Sushiro, I had this amazing salmon roe (いくら/ikura) and my husband had huge scallops (帆立/hotate) for 180 yen each.

Sushiro also had a lot of what’s often called “sousaku zushi” (創作寿司/creative sushi). A lot of this creative sushi comes about because it’s, well, cheap. But it’s still good! Here’s Sushiro’s take on salmon: nice salmon with roe (left), normal salmon (right), and salmon with a piece of avocado and a bunch of mayonnaise on top (middle).

There was also scorched salmon with basil and cheese (right), and a prosciutto (生ハム/nama ham) sushi with onions and mayonnaise (left). There was a lot of mayonnaise.

And shrimp tempura (えび天ぷら/ebi tempura) sushi:

Besides all the interesting menu items, another exciting thing about Sushiro is the touchscreen ordering device at each table. You can use this device to order any variety of sushi, of course, but you can also get items as diverse as ramen, udon, desserts, drinks…and french fries.

When you order something from the touchscreen, it comes around on the conveyor belt in little dishes marked with your table’s color (so other people won’t steal it!). The touchscreen sounds an alarm and a voice tells you a few moments before your order comes by, so you won’t miss it.

Here’s what came when we ordered 4 servings of miso soup with clams (蛤の赤だし/hamaguri no akadashi).

As you can see, we were at the green (緑/midori) table!

For dessert, I ate a parfait with soda-flavored jelly and ramune (ラムネ) candy pieces, but I forgot to take a picture until I was almost finished.